retrosynthesis

English

Retrosynthesis of phenylacetic acid

Etymology

From retro- +‎ synthesis.

Noun

retrosynthesis (countable and uncountable, plural retrosyntheses)

1. (organic chemistry) The prediction of precursors (intermediates and reactants), given the products of a synthesis reaction.
   • 1983, Francis A. Carey, Richard J. Sundberg, Advanced Organic Chemistry: Reactions and synthesis, Plenum Press, page 578,

     The retrosyntheses shown in Scheme 11.11 correspond to the syntheses in Schemes 11.12 and 11.13.

   • 1991, Australian Journal of Chemistry, Volume 44, CSIRO, page 1294:

     The retrosyntheses shown in Scheme 2 lead directly to acetylene-type retrons (14)-(16) (path a) or implicate the use of Dewar o-xylylene (17) (path b) and the smaller retrons (18)-(20); the latter path was the route we elected to pursue (Scheme 3).

   • 2007, Helmut Cölfen, “Bio-inspired Mineralization Using Hydrophilic Polymers”, in Kensuke Naka, editor, Biomineralization II: Mineralization Using Synthetic Polymers and Templates, Springer, page 25:

     For example, the above mentioned retrosynthesis of nacre [132] is as much bio-inspired as is the crystallization in presence of hydrophilic polymers [44], although in the first case, the original biomineral structure is reproduced, whereas in the latter case, no biomineral is reproduced but complex crystal morphologies are obtained.

Synonyms

• (prediction of precursors): retrosynthetic analysis

Derived terms

• bioretrosynthesis
• retrosynthesize
• retrosynthetic

Related terms

• retrobiosynthesis

Translations

prediction of precursors in a synthesis reaction

• German: Retrosynthese f
• Italian: retrosintesi f, analisi retrosintetica f
• Spanish: retrosintesi f, análisis retrosintético m

See also

• reverse engineering
• synthon

Further reading

• Retrosynthetic analysis on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Elias James Corey on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Organic synthesis on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Total synthesis on Wikipedia.Wikipedia